Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter, Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Paula Gopee-Scoon has ex­pressed an­tic­i­pa­tion that the Agree­ment will sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go’s trade pol­i­cy and elim­i­nate non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers. The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try:

Trinidad and To­ba­go and Chile com­menced the First Round of Ne­go­ti­a­tions for the Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment be­tween the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad & To­ba­go and the Re­pub­lic of Chile on Tues­day 17 Au­gust, 2021. The com­mence­ment of these ne­go­ti­a­tions is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in deep­en­ing bi­lat­er­al trade re­la­tions be­tween both coun­tries fol­low­ing the sign­ing of the Gen­er­al Frame­work Agree­ment in Oc­to­ber 2020.

Dur­ing the Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny of the ne­go­ti­a­tions, Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter, Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Paula Gopee-Scoon ex­pressed an­tic­i­pa­tion that the Par­tial Scope Agree­ment will pro­vide new mar­ket ac­cess op­por­tu­ni­ties for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s man­u­fac­tured goods. She said “The Agree­ment will al­so sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go’s trade pol­i­cy which has iden­ti­fied the Cen­tral and South Amer­i­can mar­kets for ex­pan­sion of ex­ports. We hope to not on­ly be able to ex­port our man­u­fac­tured goods at pref­er­en­tial rates to Chile but to al­so seek in­puts in­to pro­duc­tion at com­pet­i­tive prices. The pri­vate sec­tor of Trinidad and To­ba­go has ex­pressed a keen in­ter­est in this arrange­ment and is ea­ger for its fruition.” 

A Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Chile will al­low Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­ports to en­ter the Chilean mar­ket of over nine­teen (19) mil­lion per­sons at pref­er­en­tial rates of du­ties. Im­ports of se­lect­ed in­puts in­to man­u­fac­tur­ing and con­sumer goods will have re­duced du­ty. This Agree­ment will al­so seek to elim­i­nate non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers and fos­ter co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the coun­tries in mu­tu­al ar­eas of in­ter­est, in­clud­ing trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion and elec­tron­ic trade.

Trinidad and To­ba­go and Chile share a very im­por­tant trad­ing re­la­tion­ship, with the trade bal­ance tra­di­tion­al­ly favour­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go. In 2020, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­ports to Chile were es­ti­mat­ed at TT$ 333.5 mil­lion and were pri­mar­i­ly dom­i­nat­ed by en­er­gy prod­ucts such as am­mo­nia, liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas and urea. It is an­tic­i­pat­ed that this Agree­ment can as­sist with di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of T&T’s ex­port base to Chile to­ward the non-en­er­gy sec­tor and al­so in­crease ex­port val­ues. Non-en­er­gy prod­ucts ex­port­ed to Chile in 2020 in­clud­ed aro­mat­ic bit­ters, rum and liqueurs and cor­dials. On the im­port side, trade has been fair­ly sta­ble over the last five years, with prod­ucts val­ued at TT$ 148 mil­lion im­port­ed from Chile in 2020. The top im­port­ed prod­ucts in­clud­ed tis­sue, wood prod­ucts, cloth­ing, grapes and frozen fish.

Al­so de­liv­er­ing Re­marks was His Ex­cel­len­cy Ro­dri­go Yañez, Vice Min­is­ter for Trade, Chile who re­it­er­at­ed Chile’s com­mit­ment to fur­ther­ing the ne­go­ti­a­tions and strength­en­ing bi­lat­er­al trade with the Caribbean and in par­tic­u­lar Trinidad and To­ba­go. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Chief Ne­go­tia­tor of Chile, Mr. Fe­lipe Lo­pe­andía not­ed that the Agree­ment will rep­re­sent a pow­er­ful tool to rein­vig­o­rate both economies and stim­u­late bi­lat­er­al trade. It al­so presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to main­tain and pro­mote the ex­change of the prod­ucts that con­sti­tute tra­di­tion­al ex­change and stim­u­late new prod­ucts to­wards more di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

The First Round of ne­go­ti­a­tions will span over three days and con­clude on Thurs­day 19 Au­gust, 2021. Dis­cus­sions will in­clude ar­eas re­lat­ed to mar­ket ac­cess, rules of ori­gin, san­i­tary and phy­tosan­i­tary mea­sures, tech­ni­cal bar­ri­ers to trade, trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, trade reme­dies, com­pe­ti­tion pol­i­cy and le­gal and in­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues.